


Godless Creatures

by froggie (pommeideas)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dean kept Miracle, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Gen, I am just completely ignoring 15x20 except 2 things, M/M, Metaphysics, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, and Jack rescued Cas from the Empty, and a nice surprise at the end, crack-ish (as spn should be), there is an Amara cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27677446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pommeideas/pseuds/froggie
Summary: A series of conversations about life and love.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 101





	Godless Creatures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarsBooksFriedchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsBooksFriedchicken/gifts).



> writing from the pov of a three years old nephilim who has been god for a week was a bit puzzling at the beginning but I feel like I did a good job? anyway, I hope you like it, I made myself really emo with this near the end

> Ring the bells that still can ring  
>  Forget your perfect offering  
>  There is a crack, a crack in everything  
>  That's how the light gets in
> 
> – Leonard Cohen, _Anthem_

The first act of Jack as the new God was to reach out towards all living beings and pull them back from the not-a-place where Chuck had sent them. He couldn’t really explain, to the part of himself that still needed human language, what this not-a-place exactly was, although he understood it – it was the void, it was nothing (no-thing), it was the opposite of existence.

People were not just _gone_ , they were never there, and they were nowhere, a removal that was so unnatural it made Jack cold, cold to the bone despite the infinite warmth that inhabited him. People were never supposed to not-be. Whoever lived and died simply underwent a transformation, moving from space to space and shape to shape, from the universal current of life that ran through all things, to Earth, and to Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or the Empty. Nobody was ever really lost, because the world had been created with utmost care and love, despite the flaws of its maker. The sheer power of _life_ that was coursing through Jack was a testament of this. Death had never been the end.

So Jack reached out and with newfound divine grace he touched all the living things that never were, he willed them into existence and smiled as he felt them return all at once, alive and beautiful and _real_ , all the people that Sam and Dean had ever loved and saved, all here, all safe.

All but one.

The Empty was a place where God had no power. Those were the rules, the myth. The lie. Still, it would take special care to return it to its original state, the eternal soundless sleep, the blissful _quiet_ that it was made to crave.

 _Hands-off_ , Jack told Sam and Dean. He would only be selfish one last time.

* * *

“Castiel,” he called out into the Empty, and from his voice the angel took shape.

“Jack.”

He looked happy, gaze a bit lost as if he were only entertaining the thought of Jack being there, and not fully believing in the reality of his presence.

“What are you doing here?” 

A touch, on Jack’s flesh, on his shoulders, but he couldn’t focus. He saw Castiel and his human face and his wings and his grace, big and small, alive and dead.

“Jack? Are you okay?”

“I made it quiet.”

“What?”

“The Empty. It’s asleep now. Did you not hear? It was screaming.”

“No, I–”

 _I was dreaming_ , Castiel thought. Jack heard it.

“What were you dreaming about?”

The God inside of Jack knew the answer to that question. Jack had asked it anyway.

“Dean.” A smile, soft, on the human face; a fluctuation of grace. Warmth. 

And then, a spike of worry, so sharp it almost took Jack by surprise.

“Dean, is he okay? Please tell me he’s alive.”

“He is,” Jack said, and smiled. Castiel was reassured, and the world was good again.

“So Chuck, did they–”

“They didn’t kill him.”

The disappointment emanating from Castiel matched the way his face fell and hardened, something of the soldier he had been visible in his eyes. _I know_ , Jack wanted to say. _I wish he was dead, too._

“Dean wouldn’t let us. He said he wasn’t a killer anymore.”

If grace could burn God’s eyes then the flare of absolute happiness would have made him blind. What was left of Castiel lit up with elation, and suddenly Jack was happy that Chuck Shurley was spared.

“Chuck is human now, he won’t do us any harm.”

“Humans can do plenty of harm,” Castiel grumbled, but he was still smiling, proud in a way that only slightly escaped Jack’s understanding. “But you didn’t answer– why are you here? Did something happen to you?” And Castiel was frowning, worried, loving, loving.

“Look again, Castiel. Look at me.”

And for the first time Castiel looked at him through the eyes of the angel rather than the man, through the eyes of the creature rather than the father, and _saw_.

“God,” he whispered, and almost fell to his knees in worship.

“Castiel, don’t.” A hand on his shoulder– gripping the trench coat. Threads of fabric under his fingertips. Jack tried to remain grounded. “I’m still me, I’m still–” _Your son_.

“How–”

“It doesn’t matter. I will tell you everything in time. Come with me to Heaven.”

“Jack, I can’t– The angels, they don’t want me around.”

“I will make new angels. Angels that are loyal to _you_.”

“I don’t need followers,” Castiel replied, a dejected line at the corner of his mouth. “I just need–”

“I know.” Jack extended a hand, still smiling. “Come with me. We will rebuild Heaven into a place where it’s good to be, with no leaders or followers, if that’s what you want, and once we are done I will restore your grace and your wings, and you can visit Dean. He misses you.”

“I would like that very much,” Castiel said, smiling softly as he took Jack’s hand in his.

And then they were gone.

* * *

Jack and Castiel remade Heaven in six Earth days and took the seventh day off, because it was hard not to give in to humorous pettiness when you had emerged triumphant in a war against the Old God.

When it was done, they sat in the shade under the trees of Bobby Singer’s piece of Heaven and watched him crack open a beer.

“This is Sam and Dean’s father,” Jack said. It was not a question.

“Not exactly, but yes,” Castiel sighed. “He was their father in the same way I was yours.”

“He loved them,” Jack summarized, and the gentle flare of Castiel’s grace was enough of an answer.

It was silent for a while, save for the wind in the trees, and the heavenly birds. Then Castiel seemed to grow both sad and happy at once, and Jack turned to look at him in confusion. It had been hard, reigning in his omniscience, but he managed to stay outside of things now, to a degree, and he had to make sense of his perceptions with words. Castiel was still looking at Bobby, but with a wistful distance in his eyes that made it clear he was thinking about something else.

“Dean will like it when he gets there,” Castiel finally said, and something in Jack squeezed painfully. It might have been Amara, or what was left of the personality she developed during her few years on Earth. Or it might just have been him, Jack, the nephilim boy that he was trying not to let go of, for Castiel’s sake.

“He won’t get here any time soon,” Jack said cautiously. He couldn’t know the contents of Dean’s death book, but he wished to appease Castiel.

“I hope so,” Castiel conceded, and fell silent again.

“Do you want to go see him?” Jack asked, and tried not to think about being left alone with the new angels.

He sensed a hint of embarrassment from Castiel.

“It can wait,” he said firmly, fiddling with the hem of his trenchcoat sleeve. “It’s only been seven days.”

“It’s only been seven days because we made it so,” Jack pointed out, surprised that Castiel had forgotten the intricacies of the passing of time on the metaphysical plane. But then again, Castiel had been on Earth for a long while. It had changed him. “You could go back and find him after the moment I left Earth, you wouldn’t have been gone for long.”

“No,” Castiel immediately answered in a tone that left no place for questions. “I won’t steal even a minute of Dean’s life. Those seven days are his and I have no wish to erase them.”

And there it was: the fundamental understanding that Castiel had of humanity, that Jack had never had time to properly grasp before he was irreparably cut off clean from anything that was human in him. Jack nodded, because what else was there to say?

“Do you want to come with me?” Castiel offered after another moment of quiet reflection during which he apparently made a decision. Somehow, Jack could tell he was only asking out of care for him, and not a real desire for him to come along.

“It’s fine, I’ll be there,” Jack encompassed Heaven with a gesture of his hand. “Sam and Dean, they might be… Uneasy around me, since I wield the power that was used to hurt them.”

 _Dean especially_ , Jack thought but didn’t say. Castiel didn’t need to hear this. 

“You’re wrong, Jack, they care about you too much to be afraid of you,” Castiel said with conviction, blue eyes boring into Jack’s human ones, and grace flaring with a protectiveness that endearingly tried to blanket the boy in him only to break itself over the incommensurable vastness of God.

“I’ll visit them another time.” Jack knew he was avoiding the topic, but he couldn’t delay Castiel’s reunion with his family anymore than he already had. “Go. I’ll watch over you.”

Finally, Castiel got up, and after one last thankful smile at Jack, unfurled his wings.

And as Castiel departed from this plane, he left a rainbow in the heavenly sky.

* * *

“How are Sam and Dean?” Jack asked eagerly the moment Castiel reappeared by his side. He immediately noticed that the emotions the angel was broadcasting were all over the place, a mix of profound happiness, regret and sorrow, swirling around him like a hurricane that Jack resisted the urge to soothe, wanting Castiel to express himself.

“They’re doing well,” Castiel sighed, rubbing at his nape, looking everywhere but at Jack. “Sam told me he is thankful that you brought back Eileen and all those who came from other worlds.”

“Of course.”

“Eileen is currently living at the bunker with Sam and Dean, and Miracle.”

Jack felt himself smile at the mention of the dog that had been so cruelly taken from Dean. He was glad she’d found her way back to him. 

“And Dean?” he asked, when Castiel didn’t elaborate.

To his surprise, Castiel looked bashfully down and his grace moved fretfully as if trying to hide from Jack’s all-seeing gaze.

“Dean was… Not very happy that I let him think I was dead for so long.”

“Did you tell him it was my fault?” 

“This is _not_ your fault,” Castiel countered, abandoning his strange behavior in order to lock eyes with Jack to better convey his point. “I should have known he would be devastated. I didn’t think–”

“You didn’t think he would be mourning you,” Jack whispered, understanding dawning on him. Castiel gave a half-shrug, looking bothered, and looked away again. 

“I hoped he wouldn’t, yes.”

“ _Why_ would Dean not mourn you?” Jack asked, completely at a loss for the first time since he took it upon himself to become God. A thought suddenly gripped him, cold and cruel. “Did he say anything mean?” 

He had refrained from listening to the conversation between Castiel and the brothers, simply making sure that he arrived safely to the bunker and that everyone remained alive and breathing. He was always mostly aware of it now, the souls and grace of his fathers and friends like candles at the edge of his field of vision, but there was too much of _everything_ to decipher whose emotions it was that he was perceiving unless he honed in on purpose.

Castiel just sighed in answer. Not a defeated sigh – a dreamy, soft sigh that immediately soothed Jack’s anxieties.

“No, actually he, uh, said some very nice things.”

What was once Amara stirred inside of Jack, in understanding and joy, with a pang of jealousy that was foreign to him. He had always known how much Castiel mattered to Dean, and even though Jack wished he himself had mattered a little more to him, he knew what his place was in the hierarchy of Dean Winchester’s needs. Nothing came before Castiel and Sam.

“I’m glad,” Jack offered, and Castiel finally seemed to let go of his remorse over letting Dean suffer for longer than was necessary.

A question presented itself to Jack then, and rather than letting himself reach into the stream of time to extract the answer, he chose to remain blind and asked Castiel instead,

“Did he also tell you nice things, before the Empty came for you? I never could figure out what kind of happiness you could have experienced.” 

He didn’t specify that he could have found out at any given moment since he became God. Somehow he didn’t think that was fair. 

“I don’t mean to pry,” he added as an afterthought, unwilling to coax Castiel into disclosing private information. From what Jack understood, humans and especially Dean could be immensely secretive about the matters of the heart, and Castiel had learned all that he knew of humanity from Dean, that much Jack knew.

“He didn’t get the chance to,” Castiel said regretfully, “otherwise I would have come back to him sooner.” 

Instead of answering Jack’s question, he took a few steps on the path they were stationed on, angelic shape carefully folded and hidden into the body that he chose to inhabit. He looked like a man taking a stroll in the woods, head slightly bent sideways to better listen to the eternal singing of the birds, and Jack tried to see only that, to give him the boundaries he so sorely needed after being unmade time and time again by those he used to trust.

“I was the one to tell him,” Castiel began, then took a long pause that seemed to fill up the space with a momentous truth. “That I love him.”

Jack fell into step besides Castiel, not looking at him but listening intently, supernatural senses tightly reigned in to allow Castiel to reveal himself at his own pace.

“I told him everything I never could before, everything I wanted him to know, how much I love him and how much _he_ loves people, how _good_ he is.” Another deep and meaningful silence. “And that made me happy.”

“I see,” Jack said, when it became clear Castiel wouldn’t continue. “And you didn’t think he would feel the same way.”

“I thought… Well, I don’t know what I thought. He always seemed to be fine without me before.”

Jack shook his head in an impatient gesture, a remnant of his time on Earth. 

“You didn’t pay attention. Dean loves you very much.”

“I know,” Castiel answered fondly, sending a smile in Jack’s direction.

“I think he is in love with you.”

That made Castiel laugh, a joyful sound, and his grace seemed to vibrate with it, iridescent even through his corporeal form.

“I know.”

* * *

From then on, Castiel started splitting his time between Earth and Heaven, still following Earth’s timeline, or more accurately, Dean’s timeline. He had that happiness about him now, one that Jack relished in every time it spiked, when Castiel was just about to leave to see Dean again, and when he came back to Heaven and saw Jack there waiting for him.

Jack was always waiting for Castiel.

As it turned out, being a hands-off God meant that the only thing left to do was either let his consciousness dissolve into the universe, or patiently watch history unfold. It might have been entertaining to watch what humans were up to in Heaven, if Jack had known anyone personally. As it were, the only human he was eager to see was his mother, and he still hadn’t worked up the courage to this.

He didn’t exactly feel afraid, per se, as it seemed that his human emotions had all been tampered with by the raw divine energy coursing through his being. But part of him knew that seeing him like this would only hurt her more. This was the same reason why he kept his distance from Sam and Dean, no matter how many times Castiel asked him if he wanted to come down to Earth with him.

As for the new angels – well, he was kind of embarrassed to admit that they worshipped him. This was not what he intended.

As time passed and Jack got a better grip on his divine nature, he felt more and more like the person he used to be, and more and more aware of his inadequacy. 

He was not fit to be God.

No one was.

Chuck certainly hadn’t been.

Amara agreed vehemently with this statement. Jack had long conversations with her – or at least, what would be called conversations if it had to be explained to a human. They communicated on a deep level, intertwined as they were, while somehow being able to maintain a façade of individuality, as if they were not the same dual being. It mattered to Jack, and it mattered to Amara, to remain as they used to be as long as there were people to know them. If Castiel, Dean and Sam were ever to disappear from Creation altogether, there wouldn’t be any point in Jack and Amara maintaining their respective identities, but Jack was never going to let this happen. No one could ever endanger the Universe again, as long as he held onto that power.

But what if _he_ was the one to endanger it?

What if the power turned him mad, like it had Chuck?

The tales of Amara showed him as power-hungry, from the moment he was born. She assured Jack that he was never going to be the same as Chuck. But hadn’t Jack been power-hungry? Hadn’t he been starved for something, too?

 _Love_ , Amara whispered. _You were starved for love. We both were._

Love, like what shone in Castiel’s eyes whenever he was near Jack. Whenever he spoke of Dean and Sam. 

Jack had tried to model angels after Castiel, to recreate the miracle that he was. He had tried to make angels into beings of love rather than soldiers, but they only loved him, and only loved _through_ him.

He had asked Castiel about this once, wanted to know what had set him apart, but his answer only puzzled Jack further.

“I don’t love humanity through God,” Castiel had answered. “I love it through the man I love. The other angels and I aren’t that different.”

Was it because Jack had been a nephilim, half-human? He understood love on an individual level, and he understood all-encompassing divine love, but an angel’s love was obscure to him – perhaps the only real mystery in all of Creation, save for the primal one, the mystery of the divine itself.

Where had it come from, this raw power, this energy, this divine essence?

 _We were born from it_ , Amara said. _You, me, and Chuck. We are not that power itself. We grew from it. No one knows where it comes from, not even Chuck knew that. It was thinking that this power was his to control that led him to where he is now – human, but not quite, a mind in an empty flesh vessel._

 _Empty?_ Jack inquired. _He doesn’t have a soul?_

 _You left him without a spark of the divine,_ Amara said, sounding pleased. _He will simply cease to exist when the vessel’s brain rots._

_And this vessel, did it have a soul?_

_Of course, like the infant I merged with when Dean set me free. Those souls were consumed a long time ago._

Jack couldn’t help but notice that Amara didn’t seem very concerned about the casualties.

_What about you?_

_What about me?_

_Could you be… you again? Reform your vessel? Or has Chuck done permanent damage to you?_

_You could reshape me as I was when I was the Darkness,_ Amara said, pensive. _You can do anything_.

“I can do anything,” Jack murmured, blinking back into the reality of Heaven and its court of angels.

“Indeed you can, Lord,” said the angel to his right. “Anything you desire is yours.”

“Even if my desire is to stop?”

That took the angel by surprise. It didn’t have a vessel yet, naked and pure as the day it was born. A being of love, and all this love, wasted on Jack.

“I don’t understand, Lord.”

“I want to stop being God,” Jack said, and discovered his desire as he spoke it.

Silence fell on the court. The hymns quieted. The remaining Seraphs of old exchanged nervous glances through their vessels. 

“Can I or can I not stop being God,” he asked around, wishing for Castiel to be there.

“Technically, you can, Lord,” said a very scared-looking angel. If angels could sweat, this one would have been soaked in fearful perspiration.

Jack was about to make his wish to relinquish his role as God at once known, when one of the newer angels spoke up, its whole shape trembling in desperate supplication,

“Please don’t leave us! Don’t leave us, Lord! Whatever we did wrong, let us be punished for it, but don’t abandon us!”

“But you don’t _need_ me,” Jack told the angel, but it only seemed to further distress it.

“What would we ever do without you?” another voice rose from the crowd.

“The Old God left us and now you want to leave us too?” 

It was Naomi advancing towards him now, righteous fury barely masking her fear.

“Naomi,” Jack greeted her. “You were there during the celestial wars. Surely you understand there is no need for a leader.”

He couldn’t help but be colder towards her than he was towards most angels. Most angels hadn’t hurt Castiel as deeply as she did. It was only because of Castiel’s forgiveness that she had not been banished to live as a human.

“There is no need for an angel to lead us, I understand this now. But God is the rightful leader, you can’t take this away from us!”

“God is not a _being_ ,” Jack finally snapped, taking a menacing step towards her as the angels fretted around him. “Chuck tricked you into believing you needed him, when in reality you were always free. _I_ created you free, all of you,” he said, turning to look at the frightened faces of the angels. They were scared, but he could tell they were also captivated. “Why would you need _me_ , Jack, to tell you what to do? The only thing you were made for is to live, and to do what you think is good. Your divine mission is to watch over human beings, to ensure their safety, and to love them. Not to wage wars in my name. That is your purpose, your only command, and there will never be another one, so why would you need me?”

It was silent after he spoke, save for a sound that he soon identified as the slow engraving of a stone tablet.

“What are you doing?” he asked the angel that was diligently carving sigils into it.

“Writing down the word of God?”

Jack simply couldn’t take it anymore.

“There is _no_ word of God! Excuse me, but all you all stupid?” 

“Lord–”

“Don’t _Lord_ me,” Jack fumed, all teenage human spitefulness. “You know what? I relinquish my power. There,” he said, and exploded into a column of light. 

He thought he heard Amara laugh as she parted from him.

The light kept pouring out from him in great cosmic waves, washing over everything with a pure intensity that should have wiped the world clean of any life had it been malicious. As it was, it simply burned through everything in the best of ways, embedding itself into the fabric of reality, slipping into the cracks and filling them with gold. 

And when it was done, the angels looked upon the world with wonder and love, and Jack thought he finally understood them.

“See?” he said in his sweet boyish voice, and the angels' attention snapped back towards him as if they had forgotten he was there. “There is no will. No wrath. No God.”

Slowly, he stepped back, smiling at the blissful angels, feeling at last like he knew himself.

“Or rather,” he kept going, elated, “God is in everything. So if you want to serve God…” 

He opened his arm and breathed in, the air feeling no different than before, except maybe a little happier, a little more hopeful.

“It means you need to serve _life_. To serve God is to live for love.”

And then Jack turned away from the heart of Heaven, and walked down the path, and never looked back.

At the end of the path he found Castiel waiting for him with a smile and tearful eyes, and with a love so warm and deep Jack wondered how he had ever allowed it to be drowned by the harmonious cacophony of Creation.

Love rang true as Castiel wrapped his arm around him and told him, “I’m so proud of you, Jack.” 

It rang true as they visited his mother and she kissed his cheek and told him, “I’m proud of you, Jack.”

It rang true as they finally made their way to Earth and Jack, filled to the brim with self-consciousness and hope, was engulfed in Dean’s arms as he told him, “We’re proud of you, you know that, right? I’m proud of you, Jack.”

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't help but throw in my favorite Uriel quote in there, hope you noticed :p


End file.
